Beneath The Paint
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Azula compares an old family portrait to a new one and contemplates how far theiy've come.


From time to time, Azula would find herself gazing at old family portraits. A thing that no one else seemed to understand. "Why would you ever stare at those, knowing how miserable things were when they had been painted?" The question was always the same. It was true, Azula recalled very vividly the anger and sadness that usually came shortly after the portraits were done. She remembered the effort it sometimes took to plaster that smile on her face despite the discomfort of having to stand so rigidly still and despite how hotly Ozai had raged at her just an hour before. And all because she had gotten one very simple bending stance wrong. She recalled vividly that Zuko, too, had to bury his sorrow and fake a smile. His smile was probably faker than her own. Of course Ozai had the hardest time; he had to pretend that he was actually a loving father. His poor wife had to pretend that her marriage was happy and that she loved her daughter–Azula had thought so for the longest time anyways.

Her pointer grazed over her mother's image. It had grown a bit faded over time, as did the rest of the painting. A slight smile toyed at the corner of Azula's mouth. Ursa was five years dead at this point; the woman had lived a long and happy life. And she left that long and happy life with nothing unresolved. Azula bit her lip, thinking of how she very well could have been the only thing her mother never made peace with.

Azula knew with certainty that the smile in that portrait was as false as any, for she had seen Ursa's real smile. One that reached the woman's eyes with a soft twinkle. She saw it in that brief moment before her mother wrapped her arms around her for the first time in a long while. It was a warm embrace, a long one. Azula remembered wondering if it would ever end at all, or if Ursa would hold her until she made up for all of the time she hadn't.

Indeed, Azula saw Ursa's genuine smile. Right after she had come to realize that the woman truly did care for her. Right after she finally let her walls crumble and a chance at something new in. In that moment Azula saw something in her mother that she'd never seen in her father; genuine pride. Ursa was proud of her.

Iroh was proud of her.

He too was there when Azula made her decision to let the fire die in her palm and surrender. When she fell to her knees, absolutely convinced that she'd irreversibly lost everything.

Her gaze settled on him in the portrait. Like Ursa he had passed after living a long and peaceful life. But unlike Ursa, in the portrait, he didn't even try to mask his disappointment. In the same way he never really tried to mask his disappointment with her. For the longest of time, Azula was angry. So angry. Angry that he could look at Zuko with no disappointment at all, and at her with all of it. So angry that even Iroh, Uncle Iroh, the man who saw good in everyone, could see no good in her.

She'd forgiven him over a cup of tea and a lesson in firebending that she wouldn't forget. Azula liked to think that she was the best, better than anyone, at firebending. But Iroh had experience on her. The man had shown her stances and moves that she'd never even heard of before. Techniques that even she struggled to master. But unlike Ozai, Iroh never beat her down or berated her for her struggle. Instead, Iroh helped her to her feet and explained the technique in a new way, a way that she better understood. After a while she realized what he was truly teaching her. It was something he'd taught Zuko so long ago; that she didn't need pure and ice-cold rage to fuel her bending. Bending with anger had its power. But bending without fury had more of it–deep down she had always known it. She had the right idea back before the comet. Iroh had given her a reminder and then some.

After that training, Azula had found herself sitting upon the staircase leading back into the palace, slightly short of breath and a little red-faced. Iroh wasn't cruel like Ozai, but he worked her much harder. He had come to sit down beside her and placed an arm on her back. "I think that this was you're best day yet. I think that tomorrow you'll have the stance mastered." He knew how to get her attention, and he knew that he had it. He chose that moment to tell her that he didn't hate her, that he never had. He admitted that he questioned whether or not she had good in her. It was a jab to her ego, but she had to respect that he was ballsy enough to confess it to her face. And so she let him talk. She let him talk until he looked her in the eyes and told her that she is a good woman and that she probably always was deep down. In that it became clear to her that Zuko had probably received a very similar talk.

Zuko.

Where Azula had anger and discomfort in her eyes in the portrait, Zuko had sorrow and hints of shame. Her eyes always fell on him last. But with the most fondness. Indeed he had a lot of sorrow in that image. But in recent every time her eyes met his, she was staring at pride, joy, and optimism. Zuko had grown happy. Something he was never going to let go of.

In that portrait in particular, the painter had instructed she and her brother to hug. This was where part of Azula's discomfort came from. The very notion of hugging him had made her want to gag. But there they were, forever captured in clumps of paint, with their arms around each other. Zuko looking like he wanted to cry and Azula like she wanted to punch the poor kid.

Azula always found herself narrowing her eyes and cocking her head to the side when studying that half of the portrait. Those feelings had grown so foreign. She struggled to recall what it felt like to hate Zuko that much. She didn't even try to recall those feelings. Azula looked at the portrait next to it. Ozai was absent from the image. A new had was on her shoulder in this one. Ursa's. Her hand squeezed it with a sort of affection that the portrait could do no justice to. But Azula had felt it all the same and felt it again every time her eyes fell on this portrait. Iroh had his arm slung over Zuko's neck. She and Zuko didn't hug, not in this one. But she leaned against him, her arm jabbing into his rib cage. She recalled him demanding that she get off of him and (much to the annoyance of the painter) playfully shoving her off of him. Only for her to reposition herself in just the same way.

That was the difference between the portraits. The first one displayed hatred and malicious intent hidden behind a facade of false and forced love. The second showed off love and affection hidden under light-hearted banter and annoyed looks. That's why the second portrait was her favorite.

That was how things should have been. How Azula was glad that they became. She could poke and taunt Zuko, but in a way that didn't truly hurt him. And he could fight back in a way that wouldn't have Ursa dashing across the yard to reprehend them. Of course there was that one time where the pair had chosen the wrong time to engage in sibling squabbles and they both ended up in their rooms like children. Azula smirked to herself, there had been a sense of unity in that.

Her pointer moved over to Zuko in the first portrait. Somehow, on the day she surrendered and begged for mercy he had made feel her this odd sense of strength instead of letting her feel pathetic. Something about how it took a whole new kind of courage to let herself feel that vulnerable. A whole different kind of strength to start anew. The same kind that he had found years before she.

For that, she looked at the first portrait with fondness and gratitude. Juxtaposed by the second painting it was a powerful message. A powerful reminder of how things could have turned out verses how they did. That first portrait somehow brought Azula a sense of gratitude and relief that the second one just couldn't.

"Do you really like that portrait?" TyLee had asked her on one occasion with Mai nodding in the background.

And she could only give one answer, plain and simple. "Yes, TyLee, I do."


End file.
